An Etchers Voyage of Discovery. 329 



canoe, flat-bottomed, and extremely even uncomfortably 

 narrow. She must have been terribly crank ; but that 

 is a defect the body accustoms itself to so easily, that, 

 after a fortnight's practice, one sits in a crank boat as 

 easily as in a stiff one. There is usually a certain 

 amount of jealousy amongst boat-builders, and the me- 

 chanic who had made the iron canoe spoke very dispar- 

 agingly of mine, which I took with British coolness; 

 merely inquiring whether he had .ever descended the 

 rapids in his invention, which was entirely without a 

 deck, and would have certainly gone to the bottom like 

 a lump of lead after half a dozen waves had washed 

 into it. The crowd around us seemed to consider that 

 the best proof of the quality of my own vessel was her 

 successful voyage down the wildest parts of the river. 

 After that, the inimical mechanic became suddenly very 

 amiable, and conducted me over the ironworks, explain- 

 ing every process most politely. The reason for this 

 amiability became evident at last ; for just as I left him, 

 and thanked him, he proposed to build me an iron canoe 

 which should be made exactly according to my own 

 fancy, and have a deck, and every thing I had a mind 

 to. In a word, he was a shipbuilder (on a very small 

 scale) touting for orders. Had the present writer been 

 a permanent resident at Gueugnon, it would have been 

 rather a tempting proposal, as there is no employment 

 in the world more congenial to his feelings than super- 

 intending the construction of a boat. 



There is a great weir at Gueugnon, which offers a 

 slope of most excellent masonry very like a great rail- 



